President Obama has been called the “Consoler-in-Chief” because he’s had to comfort the nation in the wake of a mass shooting more than a dozen times during his presidency. Tuesday, he announced a series of executive actions he plans to undertake to curb gun violence.

Although the president said he believes in the 2nd Amendment, he also pointed out America’s unique level of violence among advanced nations.

“We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees this kind of mass violence erupt with this kind of frequency,” President Obama said. “It doesn’t happen in other advanced countries. It’s not even close.”

The president criticized Congress for not passing common sense reform measures, blasting them for being in bed with to the gun lobby.

“The gun lobby may be holding Congress hostage right now. But they cannot hold America hostage,” he said. “We do not have to accept this carnage as the price of freedom.”

Toward the end of the speech, a visibly emotional President Obama wiped away tears when he discussed victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

“Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad,” he said, wiping away tears. “And by the way, it happens on the streets of Chicago every day.”

While it remains to be seen what affect President Obama’s new measures will have on gun violence, it’s clear this issue is close to his heart.

This issue of gun violence is a serious issue. The great lie, which has been shown by many, is that nothing can be done. The truth is that some things can be done. The President’s executive order is centrist and it is not extremist despite the rhetoric from the far right who cares more for guns than human life. Guns are not superior to human life. Human life has more value than a gun. Also, most Americans by polls support expanded background checks. The most promising option is a national permit-to-purchase, or PTP, policy requiring people to obtain a permit, contingent on passing a background check, before buying a firearm. In their recent review of dozens of scientific studies analyzing gun laws, Daniel W. Webster of Johns Hopkins University and Garen J. Wintemute of the University of California at Davis, concluded: “The type of firearm policy most consistently associated with curtailing the diversion of guns to criminals and for which some evidence indicates protective effects against gun violence is PTP for handguns.” In Missouri, the 2007 repeal of a PTP law was associated with a 14 percent increase in the murder rate and an increase of 16 percent in the firearm-related suicide rate. Studies that examined Connecticut’s 1995 PTP law found that it was associated with a 40 percent reduction in the state’s firearm homicide rate and a 15 percent reduction in firearm suicides. A 2006 study by Duke University’s Elizabeth Richardson Vigdor and James A. Mercy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at data from 1982 through 2002 covering 46 states and found that policies that prohibited people with a domestic-violence restraining order from owning a gun are associated with a 7 percent reduction in intimate-partner homicides. Another study, by Webster and Michigan State’s April M. Zeoli, analyzed a similar set of policies but used more fine-grain city-level data and a more robust set of controls. It concluded that such policies were associated with a 19 percent reduction in intimate-partner homicides.

There should be investments in mental health programs too. The far right hypocrites claim to support mental health funding, but many of them refuse to support the government to spend money for mental health programs. The CDC should study the causes of gun violence and advance recommendations to fight back against gun violence. There should be investments to combat poverty, economic inequality, and other evils in America. Other industrialized nations don’t have the extent of gun violence that America has. This should change and this should change now.

You know what the saying goes, because what you wish for. El Nino is something. We had another one back in 1998 too. Spring is a great time of the year too. Spring is when it’s not too hot and it’s not too cold. So far, we have to reckon with Winter.

eLLe D.

I really do love the winter time but not when I have to be in it so much. We just didn’t really have a transition like the old days–from season to season. Just up and down madness.

It’s a a roller coaster wide of temperatures. One day there is extreme warm and in other days, there is extreme cold. Back in the day, there was just a gradual transition of temperatures from season to season.

Thanks for letting me know about this documentary Brother Truth what an eye opener! It was emotionally painful to watch but so educative. Please can you recommend to me any books that I can read to learn more about Decolonization & the Independence struggle in Africa?

Bravo president, but the comments were so cruel (crocodile tears, he’s fake, etc.), i swear this man can’t win for nothing, so tired of it, how they treat him, he’s a good guy doing the BEST he can, he gets hate and negativity hurled at him all the time. I just want his presidency to end, i can’t bear any more biased/racist GOP attacks from conservative politicians/senators/congressman/media on him or his character or against his family. He was put through the ringer way to much for me, he is a gr8 man and did allot, but i want him & his family to have a peaceful life away from the white house, they’ve been put under the magnifying glass way more than any other sitting POTUS has ever been, just so foul!!! And he handled it with such class and dignity.